Large fire walls, such as fire walls capable of providing protection against fires in oil refineries and large electrical transformers are traditionally made from ordinary concrete. The problem with fire walls constructed from ordinary concrete is that they must be extremely thick to adequately withstand the high temperatures created from large hydrocarbon pool fires with long durations (typically 2000° F. and lasting six hours or more).
Accordingly, there is a need for new materials from which large fire walls can be created which provide sufficient protection against large, very long-lasting and hot fires without requiring excessive thickness to simultaneously meet severe mechanical requirements.